In the darkness of the night we could soon see the form of the foremost leader and then such dense masses that one could not distinguish one from the other. How long they were passing we forgot to note; it seemed like an age. When daylight came a few stragglers were yet to be seen and fell under the unerring aim of the frontier-man's rifle. Our neighbors in camp did not escape loss. Some were detained for days gathering up their scattered stock, while again others were unable to find them, and lost their teams, or a part of them, and never did recover them. At times when not on the road, the buffalo were shy, difficult to approach and hard to bag, even with the long range rifles of the pioneers. CHAPTER VIII. OUT ON THE PLAINS. As soon as a part of our outfits were landed on the right bank of the river our trouble with the Indians began, not in open hostilities, but in robbery under the guise of beggary. The word had been passed around in our little party that not one cent's worth of provisions would we give up to the Indians,—believing this policy was our only safeguard from spoliation, and in that we were right. The women folks had been taken over the river with the first wagon, and sent off a little way to a convenient camp, so that the first show of arms came from that side of our little community, when some of the bolder Pawnees attempted to pilfer around the wagons. But no blood was shed, and I may say in passing there was none shed by any of our party during the entire trip, though there was a show of arms in several instances. One case in particular I remember. Soon after we had left the Missouri River we came to a small bridge over a washout across the road, evidently constructed very recently by some train just ahead of us. The Indians had taken possession and demanded pay for crossing. Some ahead of us had paid, while others were hesitating, but with a few there was a determined resolution not to pay. When our party came up it remained for that fearless man, McAuley, in quite short order to clear the way though the Indians were there in considerable numbers. McAuley said, "You fellers come right on, for I'm going across that bridge if I have to run right over that Ingen settin' there." And he did almost run over the Indian, who at the last moment got out of the way of his team, which was followed in such quick succession and with such a show of arms that the Indians withdrew, and left the road unobstructed.